With Olympic Winners on Board, the Brazilian Senior Team Will Participate in the Grand Slam Tyumen
BJC called nine athletes, including Ketleyn Quadros and Leandro Guilheiro, in order to take part in this weekend’s competition in Russia.
While one team is taking part in Toronto Pan American Games, another one is travelling to Russia, boarding on July 13th for the Grand Slam of Tyumen. Due to this competition, the champion can score 500 points in the world ranking. In order to participate in this competition to be held on July 18th and 19th, the Brazilian Judo Confederation called nine athletes, including two Olympic winners Ketleyn Quadros (63kg) and Leandro Guilheiro (81kg).
"I will try to do my best judo performance. I thought that despite spending two years without putting the kimono on my coming back would be quite easy. Actually, I had to go to competitions, get a shock, get back to the mat, reflect, see what I needed to improve and see if I still could do it. In Tyumen, I hope to make a good competition and leave the competition satisfied with myself. I believe that I will do a good performance, "says the half middleweight, medalist in Athens and Beijing, who will go to his seventh contest of the year after a two year-break without competing due to an injury.
In 2014, with a 15 member-delegation, Brazil won 10 medals, including five gold, two silver and three bronze awards. The team that will represent the country has two members from the last year’s one: Ketleyn Quadros and Marcelo Contini (73kg). Ketleyn, who was still competing in the lightweight (57kg) category, finished seventh, and she came home with a medal.
"It was a competition in which I fought very well last year and I won the silver. So I hope to improve my result and come back with the gold this year, "Contini said.
Besides them, Jessica Pereira (52kg), Samantha Soares (78kg), Rochelle Nunes (+ 78kg), Phelipe Pelim (60kg), Eduardo Bettoni (90kg) and Rafael Buzzacarini (100kg) will defend the colors of Brazil in Russia. The technical committee will be formed by the Head of Delegation, Amadeu Moura Jr, the coach Mario Sabino and the physiotherapist Gláucio Paredes.
The fights begins on Saturday, July 18th, with the women extra-lightweight, half-light, lightweight and half middleweight categories; and the men extra-lightweight, half-light, lightweight categories. On Sunday, the last day of competition, the mats will be stepped on by the women middleweight, half-heavyweight and heavyweight categories as well as the men half middleweight, middleweight, half-heavyweight and heavyweight categories. Preliminaries start at 2 am on Saturday morning and end at 9am. They will be live broadcast by Esporte Interativo.
